Many thanks!
Israel - Palestine Discussion | Post Respectfully | Discuss more, tweet less
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you're underestimating the value of south africa in the newly emerging world order. the last of the brics formation. but more than that, you're underestimating the caveats the arab states impose when talking about dealing with israel more openly. just the other day jordan stated that the palestinians must have a state. that in other words there remains a barrier betwen israeli and jordanian cooperation in the context of the water project inasmuch as the palestinian question remains open. and jordan is the most receptive of those states to american and israeli proposals. egypt too but jordan matters more because of its proximity and history.
this idea of soft power is all well and good but people forget that it is soft. it evaporates quickly under the slightest challenge. it's public relations management and nothing else. you can't manage public relations when you practice apartheid for long without internal and external contradictions hitting you from each side. the israeli position has really never been weaker despite the abraham accords. not since they were nearly defeated in war anyway. the us is moving out of the middle east because it cannot sustain its presence there. the abraham accords and talks of a west asian nato are like a golden parachute attempt to solidify the israeli position. iran is the most powerful regional actor. turkey too. iraqi autonomy is growing. lebanon is in open dispute with the israelis.
we can all see what we want to see but the problem of apartheid is not going away. as long as it exists israel paints a target on its back that doesn't have to be there. not smart given the movements in the region and world at large.
AOC on Shireen’s death.
South Africa, although a beautiful country, is not a relevant player on the world stage in any political sense. Those promoting this story are hoping that the symbolism of South Africa's past can be applied through a moral lens on the Israel-Palestine situation to shame or vilify Israel into changing its policy. That is obviously not going to happen and those promoting it will be disappointed yet again, just as they were with every other political stunt of the past decade from 2010's vaunted "Gaza Freedom Flotilla" onwards.
As previously stated ad nauseam, the only players are the Israelis, both Palestinian factions (who themselves can't seem to agree on much), the US, and to a lesser extent Egypt and Jordan. Every other country and 3rd party organization is generally powerless to affect any meaningful change in the conflict.
Seems you've also bought into Russian propaganda i.e Operation SIG.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18094/israel-apartheid
"We needed to instil a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world, and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States."
-General Ion Pecapa former chief of Romania's foreign intelligence service
Couple of decent recent reads from opposite ends of the Israeli political spectrum:
This is on the Israeli response to the second intifada and the gutting of the peace camp -https://www.stateoftelaviv.com/war-has-consequences-20-year-scars-of-the-second-intifada/
This is on the significance of the exposure (primarily via recent documentaries) of war crimes committed by the IDF for Israeli society -https://www.972mag.com/schoolyard-film-lebanon-israel-nakba/
And on that latter topic:
This is on the Israeli response to the second intifada and the gutting of the peace camp -https://www.stateoftelaviv.com/war-has-consequences-20-year-scars-of-the-second-intifada/
This is on the significance of the exposure (primarily via recent documentaries) of war crimes committed by the IDF for Israeli society -https://www.972mag.com/schoolyard-film-lebanon-israel-nakba/
And on that latter topic:
Why is she calling for an investigation when The Corinthian and every other Israel-hater already knows exactly what happened?
Could it be that she's a self-confessed ignoramus on the conflict?
You are such a sociopath. Hope you don't own a gun (outside of your job).
Simple question: is Israel an apartheid state?
You are such a sociopath. Hope you don't own a gun (outside of your job).
Simple question: is Israel an apartheid state?
If you can't debate without name calling then its time for you to leave the thread.
Ok I apologise. I will refrain from name calling.
Is Israel an apartheid state? My answer is yes, what is yours?
Not a good look for AOC. She should be better prepared to talk about the political nuances of the issue if she is willing to put her name behind one side or the other.
Demolish this. Go on. Point by point.
https://www.bicom.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/BICOM_Apartheid-Smear_FINAL.pdf
Hi @Raoul please respond to the question: is Israel an apartheid state? One word answer is fine?
I don't think it is. I think its a very flawed democracy because its existence is based on the primacy of one religious group, which is problematic for any democratic system based on pluralistic values. This is where I can see a small degree of sympathy for the apartheid angle. On the other hand it is also a parliamentary democracy with a fairly middle of the road ranking on its Freedom House democracy index (which doesn't include Gaza or the WB). So when combined, its very difficult to shoehorn Israel into one camp or the other because there are vastly different political factions competing for how to deal with the the Palestinians. I would extend the same thought process to the Palestinians as well, where Hamas and Fatah appear to have completely different approaches to dealing with the Israelis. There are complexities and nuances to the relationship that are fragmenting the power structure of both sides. Therefore, I think its far more complicated issue that is hard to distill into one word or catch all phrase.
it is becoming one. not on the world stage but within the regional sphere of developing nations. i don't expect south africa to bring change to israel. i do expect other countries to follow their lead in rhetorical terms. which some have.
and i don't think it will be the morality which changes the situation. it will be economic and material necessity. that's what happened in south africa. separate but equal ended up being economically inefficient. but there will be ideologues in the arab world who rightly won't leave the palestinian issue to the side. israel is creating its own nightmare. even without a palestinian state you can see pathways to israeli acceptance by the arab world which involve doing simple thngs like lifting the siege on gaza and refusing to allow the settlers to take any more land within the occupied west bank. they can only push so far before they get a reaction and it's not far off.
that's about as interesting to me as the protocols of zion. it doesn't interest me at all.
as if you need to instill resentment to settler colonialsm in the arab world. it happens because of the settlers' intrusion into land previously used by and owned by nomadic tribes and states. when israel announces new settlement projects in the west bank, it isn't some romanian intel official which tells the arab and wider world to be outraged, it's the settlement itself.
Israel treats the occupied Palestinian region like an apartheid state, quite simple.
Thanks for the response.
what nuance? this is where i can't understand people's positioning. the situation is nuanced but the encroachment into occupied territories isn't. it's a war crime.
is there any debate about the nuances of the russian ukrainian issue even though everyone in the west is on the ukrainian side? what debate there is is shut down or labelled propaganda. that standard is not applied here. you don't see politicans outlining the nuances of russian resentment. they just say "stand with ukraine". and i don't think you'd have had any problems with aoc voting for the $50bn ukrainian lend lease act without first telling us about the nuance.
Every situation is different and should be analyzed independently. From a strictly political sense, she shouldn't be sticking her neck out on things she admittedly knows little about.
the principles here are consistent even if the situations aren't identical. you support ukraine because you say russia acts illegally to colonise the country. you support israel despite them doing the same thing russia is doing. and there's no nuance to be found on the ukrainian side and nothing but nuance to be found on the israeli palestinian side. that's pesonal ideology not logical thinking. we support ukraine because we oppose russia. we support israel because we prefer them to the palestinians. that's the only real nuance here. and you can't analyze them independently otherwise you're treating state actions in a vacuum.
what she knows is that america puts its interest in the israeli state and the ukrainian state and that this interest disregards the moral contradiction given as the premise for support.
I don't think the situations are remotely analogous given the very complicated dynamics between the Israelis and Palestinians, therefore I wouldn't conflate the two, just as I wouldn't conflate Saudi/Yemen or the insurgency in Northern Chad. The political drivers of each are entirely different.
but the american rationale for support is the same on each side despite the "moral" burden being radically different. we both know that america and other countries but in this case mostly the us uses morality as a propaganda tool to cover for national interest. that's what soft power is. so that israel commits warcrimes as defined by the un is of no matter. that russia does is of great significance. you have at least to acknowledge the hypocrisy even if you understand the reasoning from a different point of view, like national interest.
Most Americans generally support Israel because a significant portion of Americans are Christian and view Israel is an important cog in their religious culture. There are also a fairly sizeable number of American Jews on the Democratic side, many of which are key influencers in media or politics, who are pro-Israel. Collectively, both sides (who don't agree on much politically otherwise) are generally in sync on how the US should deal with Israel. This is why it is treated differently than other conflicts.
i can understand that but it still doesn't negate the moral hypocrisy.
also
there's a reason the israelis target the evangelical base despite the evangelicals wanting to bring about a kind of holocaust where most israelis die but 100k of them are saved. and that's because democrats are increasingly finding it difficult to support israel. from 35% net favour for israel among dems in 2013 to 2% net in favour today is an enormous movement.
The most famous apartheid state in modern history says Israel, one of the most controversial regimes nowadays, is an apartheid regime, and that is not newsworthy unless you're anti-Israel?
You're losing the plot in this thread, mate.
Likewise, these linguistic devices are a strange hill to die on if you're actually interested in improving the lives of Palestinians.
Irony is truly dead.
Israel is a non-issue for most Dem voters, even though most of the politicians they vote into office continue to support Israel.
Forgot how bad that clip was.
What do think would happen if Israel wasn’t called out for practicing apartheid? They’d treat the Palestinians better or something?
It wouldn’t change behavior in either case. The only outside entity that has the ability to affect Israeli political behavior is the US.
Then this doesn’t really make sense…
If the only thing that’ll improve the lives of the Palestinians is pressure from the US, then why would it help them to not point out that Israel is pursuing a policy of apartheid?
They can call it whatever they want if it makes them feel better, but it won't make a difference on policy. People who care about the issue should be getting behind realistic policy prescriptions such as Oslo, London etc., instead of feel good social media campaigns that are nice for internet point scoring purposes, but are guaranteed to not yield anything on the policy front.
You can’t do both?
And I seem to remember a grassroots effort in the US to promote awareness of South African apartheid leading directly to policy change to pressure South Africa to end their policies.
Yes, but as mentioned several pages ago, there’s no unanimity on Israel as there was on SA, and unlike SA, the US won’t be changing it policy so it would end up another dead end campaign.
Assuming that’s true, it still doesn’t mean folks should ignore or be quiet about what Israel is doing.
israeli supporters would rather everyone ignore the apartheid thank you very much.
And then there are people without a dog in the fight who would like to see an actual peace agreement between both sides, who understand that bombastic linguistic devices such as "terrorist" (Hamas) or "apartheid" (Israel) will not advance any peace agreement. This would be bad for both sides.
Who wants a peaceful solution?
USA? Don't be so naive.
The aggressors in this conflict murder with impunity while the bent politicians from your country sit back and say ‘ isreal get our unconditional support ‘ (not because they are right but because the US need a presence in that region) your country literally supports this apartheid.
The Trump administration aside, the US is generally going to support any peace deal if it sees both sides realistically working towards one. That of course will not happen if both sides have extremists on the fringes who make a living off of blaming the opposite side.